


Kindling

by MuffinLance



Series: Kindling AU [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Giving a Zuko a longshot mission, Kindling au, Ozai is officially in mourning, Zuko is officially dead, but unofficially in the military, but unofficially pleased with this quick fix to the succession problem, go ahead and try, is like giving a mouse a cookie, military!Zuko, you want to save our soldiers boy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/pseuds/MuffinLance
Summary: In which firebenders are not immune to their own flames. Prince Zuko dies in a tragic training accident; a burned boy named Li reports for duty to the 41st Division.Military firebenders are called Kindling. It's accurate.
Relationships: Zuko & the 41st Division
Series: Kindling AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746664
Comments: 150
Kudos: 4176
Collections: Best of Avatar: The Last Airbender





	Kindling

No one called them Kindling, officially. The word never appeared on any written document, any report. It got censored out of letters home.

Unofficially, _everyone_ called them that.

In the 41st Division, their unit was officially dubbed the 41st Fire Starters. Like all Kindling units, they were kept largely to camp outside of active duty. For better supervision in their training, of course. Their talents weren't to be wasted on scout patrols or minor scuffles. Their barracks were in the middle of everything, the non-bender units and command posts and sentries standing between them and the outside world. For their own protection, of course.

Not firebending was not an option. Not even for their newest recruit, the wobbly kid who was only going to have half a face once those bandages came off. Kuzon of Nara got a peek when he was in the hospital tents getting his hands rebandaged. He wasn't very good at bending. The kid must be worse, with a face like that. The kid was young. So was Kuzon.

The average life expectancy for Kindling in the field was three years. One of those was their training year.

The 41st Division's training year was ending soon. The new kid must have ticked someone off, to get assigned here just as they got their first marching orders.

(The new kid looked a hell of a lot like Prince Zuko, may he rest in peace. It was a training accident that claimed the young prince's life. Of course.)

(Under those bandages, the new kid's raw burn was the size and shape of a grown man's fist. If that fist was on fire. No one said anything about this. Of course.)

Kuzon didn't gossip about what he saw. He told everyone, but that wasn't the same as gossip.

"Hey, kid," he said in the dark of the barracks. (It was after light's out, and they'd been locked inside for their own good, of course.) "We're going to take care of you, okay? Wherever you came from, that's over now. They don't... they don't hurt us, here."

Kuzon had some scars too. Not from bending; his mum wasn't a bender. His mum complained that if she had to raise a piece of Kindling for the military to burn, the least they could do was pay to feed him. His mum had three other non-bender kids to look out for. It had to be hard raising a kid you knew you couldn't love.

"Not on purpose," Kuzon added, into the silence. The kid curled up tighter on his bunk. Maybe he even got some sleep.

Officially, the kid's name was Li. The kid was real slow about responding to that.

Unofficially, they called him Prince.

"Just a nickname, Sarge," Kuzon smiled at their squad leader. "Harmless, right?"

The Sarge let out a breath, and then got back to yelling them through their drills.

The kid had been cleared for training (too soon).

The kid went through water like he was running a fever (he was).

The kid came with them all to the hospital tent afterwards, and fell asleep sitting up while they chattered around him. While the healers wrapped their new burns, and checked their old. Kuzon nudged him awake before the nurse could set a hand on him. Prince did _not_ like waking up to unfamiliar faces. Kuzon wasn't exactly familiar, but he was better than nothing.

"Where are you hurt?" the nurse asked. Clinical, perfunctory. It must be hard, helping patients who would never really heal.

"Just my face," Prince said.

The nurse's lips turned down. "I mean new injuries."

"Nowhere," the kid said, and he sounded so puzzled about it. Like after a full day of training, that was _normal_.

(Prince Zuko was said to be a crap bender. Such a tragic death. If only he'd been born with the talent of the rest of Sozin's line, that innate control that had let them ascend to leadership, their bending blessed by Agni himself.)

(A lot of the kid's scars had the wrong edges to them, if you knew what to look for. Accidents were accidents: they flared, they dotted little ember-trails, they didn't stop clean like a hand wrapped around a forearm.)

(Kindling were allowed to wear short sleeves during training. Encouraged, even, for their quartermaster's sanity. The kid never did. He barely ever lit those trailing edges on fire, either.)

"You never have to go back," Kuzon said, into the darkness between their bunks. "I know this isn't a great life, but it's better, right?"

"...I miss home," the kid whispered back.

"Yeah," Kuzon said. "Me too."

You could miss things even when they were terrible for you.

The Sarge had been working them extra hard since their deployment orders came. He didn't need to remind them that the only prisoners the Earth Kingdom ever took were non-benders. Kindling were dangerous enough to themselves.

The non-bending units were getting worked just as hard. The officers all looked like they'd swallowed lemon-kumquats. They stopped sometimes, and watched the Kindling squad at training. Watched _Prince_. Left, after a good long look, their expressions unreadable.

Now that the kid's fever had broken (now that he almost-trusted that they wouldn't lay a hand on him, with fire or not), he'd taken to yelling at their sloppy bending almost as loud as the Sarge. The Sarge allowed it. The Sarge might have been in love.

The kid's new nickname was Sergeant. Sergeant Prince, Sir Yes Sir, if they were being formal.

"I hate you all," the kid said, and only growled when they ruffled his chick-fuzz hair. (Their entire unit might have been in love.)

Deployment day. Camp was packed up, and distributed largely to the wagons and the backs of the non-benders. Couldn't really trust the Kindling not to light something vital on fire, after all.

"You've got your full three years until retirement," Kuzon tried to joke. (It wasn't a joke.) "We've already used one of ours up. Remember that, okay? You're the one who's going to be fine. Statistically speaking."

The kid's scowl was really good, with that scar.

They reached their new camp site, on the wrong side of the lines. The Kindling unit took one of its small pleasures in life: heckling the non-benders as they set up.

"You _could_ help."

"With our delicate constitutions?" Kuzon gasped, a hand over his heart. The fake swooning was probably unnecessary, but it made Sergeant Prince snort. Which was pretty much rolling in the dirt laughing, from anyone else.

None of the officers were laughing. Or shouting more than necessary. The camp was reassembled to military standard, and not a polished-boot more. It felt hollow, somehow.

Their first fight made it pretty clear why. It was also their last fight, after all.

The kid was alive, the last Kuzon saw. They'd done that much right. Without a locked bunk room or checkpoints or sentries watching inside the camp as much as out, he could leave. Run. They made him run, scared him with fire when he wouldn't, gave him a few more non-accidental scars. They wouldn't look any different then the rest of the kid's collection, but they were.

Where would he go? He was as obvious as firebenders got. The Earth Kingdom would kill him on sight; he'd _have_ to go back to the military. That was the real trap. Not the locks or the guards. There was no place else that let Kindling burn, even for the short time they had.

But the kid was alive. That wasn't nothing.

Kuzon hissed in pain when the soldiers flipped him over. They weren't trying to be rough about it, but they weren't trying for gentle, either. Just checking the bodies.

It hurt too much to hold his breath, so playing dead had never been an option. He just kept breathing in quick tight breaths, and gave the guys in green his best smile. More or less.

"You a bender?" one of them asked.

Didn't really seem much point in answering, all things considered.

The other one lifted Kuzon's arm-- _stopped_ lifting when Kuzon couldn't help the noise _that_ brought out of him--and rolled up his sleeve.

Rough burn scars, and yesterday's bandages. Yeah, he was a bender. The guy's face twisted in disgust, but the way he set Kuzon's arm back down was almost gentle.

"They're all so young," the guy said.

"Yeah," his partner said. Which was about the only thing a man could say, when everyone knew the truth didn't change anything.

Kuzon of Nara didn't see much after that.

**Author's Note:**

> #way to bring down the average Kuzon
> 
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**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [we kill the flame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482254) by [elumish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish)
  * [Kindling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24739141) by [jedi_dragon_demigod_bender](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedi_dragon_demigod_bender/pseuds/jedi_dragon_demigod_bender)




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